credit unions in Québec, unified in a huge federation (Desjardins) have become one of the province's largest financial institutions and were the first to integrate completely financial services, ie insurance (life, car, home), long term investment and traditionnal banking, since they were not subject to the same restrictions of "compartmentalization" as were the banks until the nineties. They also were instrumental in the development of an electronic purchase system called "direct access" which uses atm cards in reatil stores. And they are very aggressive players in the fiscally subsidized "registered retirement savings fund" boom during the nineties, they where among the first to suggest to their costumers (oops "members") that they should borrow to buy their RRSP accounts. (So they can make money on interest and on brokering fess). The money they make is ideally redistributed to all members. actually it gets sucked up in the big salaries that pay themselves the top executives of the movement's bureaucracy. Today the federation is united in a holding euphemistically called a "movement" which includes participation in a for profit bank (the laurentian) and other for profit enteprise. It has downsized and flexiblized its workers like everybody else in the financial sector and has even in the eigthies tried some union busting among some of its employees, all the while clamouring about cooperative values. Finally a more left leaning type of credit union, labour union credit unions, have tried to keep out of Desjardins's grasp but have been sucked in this year, they will most probably loose their independance and capacity to fund alternative projects. sorry about the english my first language is french. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
